Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Mental Laziness

There are some people who don't seem to know two hoots about anything of importance; not the name of the people running the country, nor of the workings of the world, nor of matters of common sense. You can't discuss literature with them, nor argue philosophy. And we think, how vacuous their minds are, perhaps not by any lack of capacity or ability, but by a strain of mental laziness, of a reluctance to examine.

But then we tend to endear ourselves to the idea of an absent-minded professor, someone so deep in thought that daily life seems to be neglected. He does not know about social graces or modern dresses, and has little opinion about food and gossip. But by some measure is this not also mental laziness? Is the neglect of the mundane considered a less troubling instance of laziness?

Maybe we should get off our high horses. Perhaps those who know naught about "higher things" are truly ignorant idiots in some sense, but then again, we are quite the same in other senses.

No comments: